Of Robots And Humans
by Tissaia de Vries
Summary: Post-finale/future fic. Chuck, Sarah and their son watch a movie.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything, everything is property of _Chuck_'s creators and owners. Not even the child's name is an invention. Also, I don't know _Wall-E_.

**Spoilers** for the finale of_ Chuck_ and the movie _Wall-E_.

**Author's Note:** This is just a snippet, something I wrote to begin warming up again (because I must continue the Chuck/Fringe crossover), so don't expect a masterpiece.

* * *

The man and the child stopped in front of Sarah and stood to attention, or at least the man did, the boy didn't have time to raise his hand when he realized his pants were falling and he grabbed them in a hurry.

Sarah sighed, knelt down and re-tied the knot on the pajamas' pants.

"Ensign Bryce Bartowski and Commander Chuck Bartowski reporting for duty, ma'am," Chuck said meanwhile with a phony martial voice.

"Commander Chuck Bartowski?" Sarah asked, glancing up at him. "Wasn't it Captain?"

Chuck fidgeted. "I was… demoted."

"By Colonel Casey," Bryce said and sniggered.

"Which is a rank from the Army, not the Navy or, in this case, the United Federation of Planets, so he shouldn't be able to do this."

Sarah stood up and sent him a sympathetic look. "Did he bully you?"

"That's not it… I could have taken care of myself, thank you very much. It's just that… I didn't want to fight." Chuck gestured to their son. "Think about our child and the example that would send him."

Sarah couldn't help smiling. "All right." She regarded her son. "Did we bath?"

Bryce raised a fist. "Yep."

"Did we wash our hair?"

"I did!" He messed up his blond hair with both hands forcefully.

Sarah smoothed his hair again with two precise motions. "And behind the ears?"

"See it you'self," Bryce answered as he tried to twist them.

She patted his hands before he teared off his ears. "I believe you, I do."

Bryce threw her a smile bright enough to light up half of the moon. "So can we watch the movie now? Can be? Canwecanwecanwe? Pleaseeee?"

Chuck and Sarah exchanged a glance.

"You don't have to, if you don't want to," he said.

"But it's his favorite movie," she reasoned.

"He's seen it hundreth of times."

"Says the nerd who has seen_ Tron _a million times." She hugged Bryce from behind and smelled his hair, then she led him fordward giving him a pat on the butt. Bryce ran to the TV as he uttered a loud _yipeee_. "It's all right, I don't mind."

Chuck stroked her shoulder before he headed for the couch. "Are you sure you don't want to try a new one, Wonder Boy?"

Bryce raised the film's case in front of him, as if it was the Holy Scriptures. "But it's your story!" He put the disc on the blu-ray player and pushed play. Chuck and Sarah were staring at him with the same nonplused face. "Not your _your_ story… you're normal people and you don't travel in spaceships." He climbed the couch to put himself between his parents. "They… they remind me of you."

"They do, huh?" Chuck said. He stretched his arm to encompass Sarah's shoulders. She leaned towards him.

"Yes. Wall-E, you see? He's-he's like you." Bryce grinned. "And mom is like Eve."

Chuck winked at Sarah. "Are you saying your mom is a deadly robot?"

"Well, maybe not a robot…" the boy answered.

She slapped his arm. Bryce laughed and then his face acquired that peaceful solemnity that meant all his attention was on the TV screen.

He didn't talk much during the lenght of the movie. When Wall-E and Eve met for the first time he yanked his mother's sleeve to emphasize his "See? See? She's like you!" And he laughed at Wall-E's time taking care of Eve, and he patted his dad's arm as if he wanted to support him, which made Chuck give the hint of an incredulous smile. And he sighed when the robots danced in space because, according to him, his parents also "tango-ed." And when Wall-E was hurt, he clutched his mom's hand.

Bryce let it go when the spaceship with Wall-E and Eve and all the humans reached Earth. As if on cue, Sarah stood up from the couch.

"I'll get a drink," she murmured as she went to the kitchen.

A sticky silence fell over Chuck and his son.

"Why does mom leave always here?" Bryce asked in a quiet voice and pointed at the screen. Eve was frantically reaching for spare parts to repair Wall-E.

Chuck exhaled slowly. For an entire minute he didn't answer. "It's just…" He fell silent for another minute. "People aren't robots, Bryce. If one breaks down… if any of us loses the memory as Wall-E does, you can't magically recover it back." Chuck looked at his son with eyes darkened by a deep sadness.

"Does this hurt mom?" Bryce's voice was so low that his father had too lean toward him to actually hear his words.

"No. It just makes her a little sad." Chuck ruffled his son's hair. "It's OK, Bryce. It's not your fault. Don't worry, mom's all right."

Bryce focused on the hands on his lap, his head bowed. He seemed to have lost interest in the movie. Then, he jumped forward and ran to the kitchen.

Sarah was leaning on the counter, looking at the starry sky, with a glass of water in her hand. She turned round when she heard fast footsteps.

"What's up?"

Bryce didn't answer. Instead, he inhaled and hugged her mother's legs. Sarah was about to drop the glass because of the shock.

"Bryce, now you're worrying me. And we talked about how bad it is to worry me."

"People aren't robots."

Sarah made a face of astonishment. "Ri…ght."

"But that's OK, 'cause you're my mom and I wouldn't change you for a robot."

She smiled a little insecure. "Fantastic."

"Movies are just movies."

Her smile got bigger and she seemed to step on steady ground at last. She knelt down to look at him in the eye. "You're right, movies are just movies." She hugged him until he protested and kissed his cheeks several times. "I love you."

Bryce turned so red he seemed almost luminescent.

Sarah rose and hugged him a last time, kissing him on the crown of his head. "I knew you were going to be great when Chuck and I ordered your construction in that cyborgs' shop."

Bryce saw her walk away with a smile. It dissapeared the moment he realized her words. "Wait, what? Cyborg…? You're kidding, right? _Right?_"


End file.
